Lightning marchers receive official invite to appear in Pasadena procession on New Year's Day 2015

Each member of the Legacy Lightning marching band must raise about $1,800 to attend the 126th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year's Day 2015. To get to the parade, the band has launched a series of ongoing fundraisers.

To donate to the band or to find out more about fundraising efforts and upcoming performances, visit legacybands.org

The countdown to the 5-mile march is on.

The Legacy Lightning marching band is bound for the 126th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year's Day 2015. It received an official invitation Friday in front of cheering school mates during a pep assembly in the Legacy gym.

Tournament of Roses president Richard Chinen, who traveled from Pasadena to congratulate the band, said the band would make its school and community proud.

Though the parade route will be long — 5.5 miles, to be exact — Chinen said the nervousness and tiredness will melt away when band members see the faces of the huge crowd.

"When you see the sea of people, you'll feel so giddy ... you'll be helping people celebrate and start the new year off right," he told the band.

Before the band can walk the parade route, though, it needs to raise about $1,800 per student to make it there, said band leader Clay Stansberry. There are 160 students in the band.

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The pep rally on Friday also was an unofficial kickoff for the band's major fundraising efforts, which will include a five-month long car raffle, weekly bingo games, fundraising performances, including at a Colorado Rockies game, and other events.

"We'll be having a fundraiser pretty much every month," Stansberry said.

Chinen said part of his job is to travel around the country to support the bands that will perform in the parade. Traveling to Pasadena, transporting instruments and staying in hotels can get expensive, he said.

"Being here in Broomfield in person is a way to alert the community to the great things this band is doing," and hopefully help it raise money to get to the parade, Chinen said.

The Legacy band has a special place in the parade, he said, because it is the only band from Colorado, and one of only a few bands from western states.

The Legacy band has a lot of fundraising work ahead of it, as well as a lot of work to train for the long parade route.

Stansberry said students still have to finish the school year's planned band concerts, state competitions and other performances before buckling down to prepare for the Rose Parade.

"It's just such a busy time for us," he said.

The marching band learned it would be performing in the parade back in September, when Stansberry surprised the 160-member band with the news.

Now, several months later, it still seems like a dream for many band members, including Casey Harmon, a saxophone player who will be a senior when she and her bandmates walk the parade route in January.

Seeing Chinen in person solidified their resolve to do a great job, she said.

"When we saw him there, we were inspired to play better, to prove to him that we deserve to be in the parade," she said.

Harmon and her bandmates said their typical band season will be stretched longer to properly prepare. They're anticipating marching in rain and snow before they get to march on the sunny streets of Pasadena.

They know they will kick into fundraising mode, too.

"It will be such a cool experience," Harmon said.

This year's seniors won't be able to march in the parade, but many said they were proud their hard work helped propel the band to the Rose Parade.

The band has been a part of other well-known parades, such as the 2011 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Yet the Rose Parade is something special, because it is one of the biggest in the world. About 60 million people see the parade each year, with about 25 million tuning into the parade on TV or online, Chinen said.